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NEW YORK—The Blue Jays rolled into a key series with the Yankees here Friday with a hot offence that will have to stay that way if the club is to make any noise in the AL East Division.

That offence came alive at the right time but faces a stiff challenge in New York and in a homestand coming up in Toronto beginning Monday against Tampa, Baltimore and Atlanta.

The first installment of that challenge came Friday night and saw the Jays manage just four hits as the Yankees won 5-0 on a beautiful spring night before 40,008 in the Bronx.

Mark Buehrle did his job on the mound, and was good news for a rotation that is without Josh Johnson, J.A. Happ, Ricky Romero and trying to nurse Brandon Morrow back to health.

The lefty turned in his second consecutive solid outing and kept his team in the game through six, giving up two runs on three hits.

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Problem is, the Jays were never in this game; the offence went dry.

Yankees starter Hiroki Kuroda two-hit Toronto over eight innings and now has two wins and a no-decision over the Jays already this season. This win Friday, though, wasn’t expected, at least not in two-hit fashion against a supposed resurgent offence.

“You have to tip your hat to him (Kuroda), he pitched a good game against us again,” said Buehrle.

While this three-game series isn’t a “must-win” series, it is as important as it can get for May. Toronto entered the game having won back-to-back series over the Giants and Boston. They scored 33 runs on 41 hits over their three previous games and outscored the opposition 11-1 in the first inning combined from the previous two games.

That set up high expectations for a statement from the Jays in the Bronx. They were also due for an answer, having been swept here in four games in late April and had lost six of the first seven games against their East rivals.

Expectations were the Yankees were ripe for a beat down from the Jays. New York has held sole possession of first place for the last week, and that run featured four ex-Jays in Vernon Wells, Lyle Overbay, Jayson Nix, and Ben Francisco holding down jobs while regulars like Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez nurse long-term injuries.

Toronto responded with one hit through the first six innings, which made it clear by then this wasn’t going to be that answer night.

Melky Cabrera, with a .405 average in his previous 10 games, collected the hit. He’s now 18 for his last 44 at-bats.

The flip side for Cabrera is his defence. Plagued by hamstring problems, Cabrera is showing frequent signs of an inability to track and catch line drives; another one went over his head Friday to open that three-run seventh for the Yankees.

Both Moises Sierre and Anthony Gose are better defensive options out of Triple-A Buffalo but both are slotted to stay there with Toronto’s lineup set.

In the meantime, the Jays’ silent offence Friday was surprising given the recent positive signs. In the last four games since manager John Gibbons revamped his order, placing Cabrera, Jose Bautista, and Edwin Encarnacion in the 1-2-3 slots, the trio responded with a combined .457 average and 16 RBI.

There were encouraging signs from Adam Lind, showing more patience than ever at the plate and appearing to benefit from some guidance from hitting coach Chad Mottola.

Emilio Bonafacio was given a daily job from Gibbons last week and responded with three hits on the first day and six hits in his previous 12 at-bats entering Friday’s game in New York.

In addition to the inspiration from the recent spate of offence, the Jays were looking to answer that four-game drubbing last month. Bench player Mark DeRosa called a team meeting in New York during that spell, and the clubhouse became a groaning board for the disgruntled.

Toronto was in the midst of losing 18 of 25 games then and the club turned things around recently, which set up high expectations for Friday.

Those expectations now shift to Saturday’s day game, and that game is as close to a must-win as possible for this time of the season.

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